Tuesday 4 January 2011 16.57 EST
First published on Tuesday 4 January 2011 16.57 EST

Flirting with relegation is this Premier League season's great new game. With this easy win Fulham became the latest team to understand how three points can allow a six-position leap that replaces the dread of 19th place with the rosy warmth of 13th.

Goal difference is shaping up to have a deciding say when the three unwanted tickets to the Championship are handed out in May. West Bromwich Albion have the same 22 points as Fulham but they are three places back in 16th due to a goal difference that reads minus 13 rather than the minus two recorded so far by Mark Hughes's gang.

"You look at others down there and there is a significant difference between theirs and our goal difference which is important," the pleased Welshman said, before emphasising how crucial victory can be. "It's always the same. Draws will give you some comfort but that doesn't move you up the league."

A disappointed Roberto Di Matteo said of his side's survival hopes: "It's very tight, there are a lot of clubs fighting. As a newly promoted team we knew that would be the case. We are trying to give ourselves a chance. We will know at the end of the season if goal difference plays a part."

West Brom's manager offered a cursory grumble regarding the John Pantsil challenge that forced Marek Cech from the action on 34 minutes with a leg injury – "we will have to assess him" – and the tackle by Dickson Etuhu that led to Simon Davies's opener – "sometimes you get them" – but he had no complaints over the contest's outcome. From the moment Davies embarrassed Scott Carson, who has previous in the howler department, to open the scoring Fulham were coasting.

Hughes's selection for a contest he was desperate to win had been hampered by the absence of Andy Johnson, whose tight hamstrings meant he was rested rather than risk an absence of up to five weeks if they were aggravated – a problem that could take him from the weekend's FA Cup action. With Bobby Zamora out until February, at least, and Moussa Dembélé, the £5m summer signing, still absent with an ankle problem this meant Fulham's stock of frontline strikers began and finished with Diomansy Kamara and Clint Dempsey.

The match was open but until Fulham moved ahead quality faded near goal. The game-breaker occurred when Carson – the goalkeeper culpable for the mistake that allowed Croatia's opening goal in the 3-2 victory over England in the "Wally-in-the-Brolly" Euro 2008 qualifier in 2007 years ago – could not hold Davies's 30-yard strike.

After Youssouf Mulumbu was dispossessed by Etuhu he passed to the winger, who unleashed a sweet strike that came straight at West Brom's captain. The ball may have swerved a touch but he should still have pushed it away rather than into his goal.

In the first 20 minutes of the second half Fulham tripled their lead. From a Davies corner from the left that had the visiting rearguard slumbering, Hangeland and Dempsey both rose to meet a delivery that the American striker finished to collect a sixth league goal this campaign.

Next it was the Norwegian's turn to annoy Di Matteo as his side conceded a replica of Dempsey's strike. From another Davies corner Hangeland leapt unchallenged and he finished beyond Carson.